


walk on the ocean (step on the stones)

by whiplash



Category: Emmerdale
Genre: M/M, aaron loves his crazy family, adam as brutus, and aaron as his own grumpy overly-dramatic self, but they’re still an interfering bunch of "#"#!, chas as a struggling nigella lawson, featuring liv as the puppet master, fluff and angst and sex, paddy as the fifth teletubby, robert as love's bitch, tw: self-harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-13
Updated: 2016-11-13
Packaged: 2018-08-30 18:00:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8543422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whiplash/pseuds/whiplash
Summary: In which Liv gets it into her head that her big brother needs to give up on a lifelong bad habit. Aaron doesn’t necessarily agree but, well, he soon finds that everyone's ganged up on him. (A "slice of life" story focusing on the awesomeness that is Aaron&Robert&Liv.)





	

It’s Liv who starts it.

“Stop that,” she says one evening, punching him in the arm while they’re watching telly. 

She doesn’t hit him very hard though. In fact, his little sister has been frustratingly careful with him ever since he came back from the hospital. It’s something which Aaron hates for, oh, about a million different reasons but mostly because he wants to be the person who never, ever lets her down. The person who Liv feels that she can always rely on and who she knows will be there for her no matter what happens. And Aaron might not be all that clever, but he still understands that he’s not very likely to ever become that person if Liv gets it into her stubborn head that he’s all weak and useless. 

“What?” he asks now, doing his best to sound, well, _strong_ and _useful_. 

He finds himself wishing – as he often does – that he could draw inspiration from one of the two half-decent male role models that he had while growing up but, well, Cain’s historically not had much luck with teenage girls and Paddy, well, Paddy’s just never had much luck with Liv. The two of them have been like cats and dogs since day one, and if Aaron had the energy to spare he thinks that maybe he’d find that upsetting. As is though, he’s too busy worrying about Paddy being heartbroken over Rhona, Adam grieving over his dad and sister and Robert being Robert to care about his own upsets. 

_Much_ , he quietly amends in one of those rare moments of self-insight. He’s too busy worrying about everyone else to care _much_ about his own upsets. 

Lost in thought, he bites down on his thumb, only for his baby sister to hit him again. Harder this time. 

“That,” she says, waving her hand in his face. “Stop _that_.” 

When he still doesn’t get it, Liv rolls her eyes at him. 

“Stop biting your nails,” she orders, not unkindly but in a tone of voice that makes it clear that she expects him to do as he’s told. At Aaron’s nonplussed look, she sighs and adds, almost pityingly: “Did no one ever tell you that it’s gross?” 

It’s not the first time that Aaron’s gotten the clear impression that Liv questions how he ever got along before she showed up in his life. Not that he can truly blame her for it. In fact, he often finds himself wondering the exact same thing. 

This, however, is not one of those times. 

“You’re gross,” he counters, because at heart he’ll always be thirteen years old. 

When Liv tries to hit him again Aaron wraps his hand around her wrist and yanks it, grinning as she overbalances and lands in his lap. They wrestle, but even with Frankenstein stitches across his abdomen, it’s not long before Aaron has her pinned to his side. He tickles her, sorta like he used to do back when she was little and they both still lived with Gordon and Sandra. Liv shrieks and kicks at him, sorta like she used to do back when she was little only now she has legs like young tree trunks and far better aim. (Not to mention that her vocabulary’s vastly different from how he remembers it being back then.) 

“Alright,” he finally concedes, holding up his arms to signal a ceasefire. “You win.” 

Because while it’s nice that she’s temporarily forgotten that he’s not at his best, Aaron doesn’t want to have to explain a whole new set of bruises to Robert. Not when the old ones, the ones left behind by the seatbelt and the steering wheel column and Robert’s desperate hands, have just begun to fade and Robert’s _finally_ stopped looking at Aaron like they’re still drowning in that horrible lake. 

“Damned straight I do,” Liv says, smirking. 

She doesn’t move away from him though, just settles in under his arm and rests her head against his shoulder. Her hair smells nice and, even though she’s already stolen the remote and changed the channel to MTV, Aaron feels a wave of fondness for the unholy terror that is his little sister. 

By the time he goes to bed that evening, he has even sorta forgotten what started the whole thing. 

xxx 

Liv doesn’t though. 

It’s entirely possible, Aaron thinks as he hurries into the bathroom and locks the door behind him, that Liv _never forgets anything_. 

Actually, he rather feels like that would go a long way to explain her recent obsession with his chewed-up nails. Because, yeah, if Liv still remembers the time that teenage-Aaron cut off a big chunk of her hair with a pair of dull scissors, or that other time when he beheaded her favourite teddy bear, or how he pretty much called her Olly-Bolly for two years straight just to make her cry… well, if she remembers all that then he supposes that he’s sorta had all this coming to him for a long time. 

“I bought it especially for you,” Liv wheedles from the hallway. 

Aaron presses his back to the locked door and does his best to ignore her. It’s not right for a grown man to be hiding from a teenage girl but she’s been at him ever since he walked through the door. He’d just about managed to tune her out when she’d brought out that damned bottle of _Stop ‘n Grow_. 

“C’mon,” she says. “It’s worth a try, innit? Gabby says it worked for Arthur.” 

“Arthur’s nine years old,” Aaron hisses back at her, too outraged to keep quiet. “I’m not a kid, Liv. And you’re not painting my nails with anything, alright, so just get that idea out of your head. Don’t you have anything else you should be doing anyway? Like homework? Or nicking money out of Robert’s wallet?” 

“You can’t prove that was me! Why do you have to be so difficult about everything?” she complains, huffing and puffing like _he’s_ the one being unreasonable. And yeah, sure, Aaron might not be able to _prove_ that it was her who took that fiver out of Robert’s wallet, but, well, now that Charity’s gone, Liv’s the only klepto left in the house. He wisely decides not to give voice to that particular line of reasoning though. 

“You could give it a chance at least,” Liv continues. “It cost me like four quid to buy.” 

In a few years, Aaron figures that his little sister will get the perfect hang of emotional blackmailing and guilt-tripping. At the moment however, she’s more like an evil little Jedi in training and Aaron’s not going to fall for her mind tricks. Back in the day he’d pretty much been the master of teenage manipulation, honing his skills on Chas and Paddy. The way he remembers it, he’d even giving Vic a bit of advice on how to best handle Diane. 

“I skipped lunch so I that could afford to buy this for you,” she adds, her voice low and mournful and Aaron’s insides twist. And it’s not that he’s falling for her theatrics, honest, it’s not… except for how that’s exactly what he’s doing. _Bloody hell_. When had he become such a soft push-over? 

Feeling disgusted with himself he digs his teeth into the side of his thumb, worrying at a piece of loose skin. 

“Don’t go skipping meals,” he tells her sternly. Or, well, as sternly as he can manage when he’s speaking through a locked bathroom door with his fingers still in his mouth. Pushing down the urge to thump his head against the door, Aaron removes the saliva-damp thumb from his mouth and wipes it against his jeans. Considers unlocking the door too, but doesn’t like the idea of letting Liv too close with that nail varnish when he’s so obviously been compromised. 

After all, it wouldn’t do for Robert to come home and find him in the middle of a flipping manicure. 

“If you need money to buy stuff, then you speak to me or Robert,” he tells her, raising his voice to make sure that she can hear him. “You’re a growing girl and all that. If you don’t eat properly then you’ll stay short and midget-like forever. And you know what that means, don’t you? You’ll be stuck asking Robert to get stuff down for you for the rest of your life.” 

He wilfully ignores the fact that he’s usually the one asking Robert to get stuff down for him in the kitchen. After all, it’s not Aaron’s fault that Robert has orangutan-length arms. 

“I’m not _midget-like_ ,” Liv shrieks, just as offended as she’d been back when she still wore pigtails and cried when he called her Olly-Bolly. Eyeing the door warily, Aaron backs away towards the bathtub to protect his ears. 

“What’s going on here?” a new voice demands. 

_Robert’s voice._

He sounds confused, but Aaron knows his fiancé well enough to know that it won’t take more than a few seconds for confusion to give way to something more wicked and amused. Something that will be glittering in the corner of Robert’s eyes for days, hiding in the curve of his smile and colouring his every word choice. 

Figuring that time’s of the essence, Aaron reaches out to flush the toilet – Liv won’t buy it, obviously, but Robert just might – and yanks the door open. Outside, Liv’s still holding on to the nail polish and he gives her a warning glare even as he attempts to twist his face into a welcoming smile for Robert. Based on the way that Robert’s eyebrows travel up to meet his hairline, Aaron gathers that he just comes across looking sorta constipated. 

“I hate to ask,” Robert begins and Aaron feels his shoulders tense as he prepares to explain it all, up to and including how he’d used to massacre Liv’s soft toys. “But… don’t you wash your hands after using the bathroom?” 

Aaron gapes at him. It takes him a heartbeat to realize that Robert sounds mildly scandalized. Like he thinks, like he actually thinks that- 

Taking a deep breath, Aaron looks at Robert’s wrinkled nose, then over at Liv’s flushed face and zealous eyes. She’s clinging on to that damned bottle like it’s the holy grail and he knows, he just knows, that she’ll be recruiting Robert next. He tries to figure out a way to salvage the situation but comes up with nothing. Recognizing a lost cause when he gets slapped in the face with it, Aaron turns his back on them and stomps down the stairs. 

He needs a pint. Or maybe several. 

xxx 

“Don’t even start,” he warns Robert after he runs into him in the bedroom later that evening. 

“Not planning on saying anything,” Robert assures him, reaching out to grab hold of Aaron’s shoulder. He pulls him close, so that they’re standing chest to chest. Their noses bump together, then their foreheads. Eventually their lips meet too and Aaron knows that he tastes of beer and maybe, alright _probably_ , the cigarette that he’d sneaked in the shadows by the back door. He knows that he shouldn’t, okay, he’s not so stupid that he doesn’t realize that. He knows about the risk of erectile dysfunction and lung cancer and what not, but it’s just that sometimes all that just seems very far away and not at all that important. 

“Gah,” Robert says, his teeth nipping at Aaron’s bottom lip and his hands cupping Aaron’s arse like he thinks he _owns_ it. “Not at all like licking the bottom of an ashtray.” 

The cheeky bastard. 

“Could go brush my teeth,” Aaron offers, herding Robert up against the wall so that they can grind their hips together. They’re both hard and Robert makes a low growling sound as he spreads his legs to allow Aaron better access. 

“Nah,” Robert murmurs. “I’ll live.” 

Aaron hides his face in the crook of Robert’s neck, nosing at the soft skin behind his ear. When he licks it, his tongue tracing the length of the tendon, Robert shivers and his legs spread even further. He makes another noise. One that’s positively _wanton_. 

“Thought so,” Aaron says, feeling smug. 

xxx 

“You gotta be kidding me.” 

To his credit, Adam at least has the decency to look guilty. 

“Sorry,” he says, his eyes wide and sincere, “I know that she’s been doing your head in about it. But she might be on to something, you know. We work in a scrap yard, mate. You shouldn’t go putting your hands in your mouth all the time. With your shitty luck, you’ll pick up some rare germ and-” 

And _that_ , Aaron thinks as he turns his back on his best friend and stalks out of the portacabin without a single look over his shoulder, must be what it feels like to get stabbed in the goddamned back. 

“C’mon, mate,” Adam calls after him. “I’m just trying to save you from having your fingers amputated!” 

Aaron lifts a hand and folds down all fingers but two. 

xxx 

“Ugh,” Liv says. “You’re doing it again.” 

Aaron ignores her. He’s been practicing for most of the week, and he likes to imagine that he’s getting better at it. At least at times like these when she has her hands full and can’t slap at his hands or punch him in the shoulder. Still chewing on his nails, the index finger this time as his thumb’s getting visibly swollen, he fiddles with his phone and wishes that Robert could just come home already. 

“Tell him, will you?” Liv says, although she’s no longer speaking to Aaron. “He won’t listen to me.” 

Chas laughs, the sound warm and smoky. She’s fixing them all tea even though it’s Aaron’s turn. Supposedly she’s watched some cooking show and been struck by sudden inspiration to make a lamb curry. It seems far more likely though that they’ve all held a family meeting behind his back and decided that they’re tired of Aaron’s limited repertoire of dishes. 

“And what,” Chas says as she struggles to open a can of crushed tomatoes, “you think he’ll listen to me? Besides, your brother’s been picking and biting at his hands for as far back as I can remember and it hasn’t killed him yet. I’ll save my energy for the stuff that really matters, thank you very much.” 

“It’s _unhygienic_ ,” Liv starts, taking on that preaching tone again, but this time Aaron interrupts her. Hearing them talk about him like this, it pushes every button he has, making his very skin itch with discomfort and embarrassment. 

“You heard what she said,” he tells Liv as he goes to give his mum a hand with the can opener. It’s a new fancy one that Robert’s bought and it’s giving them all grey hairs. Especially his mum. Besides, fighting with it gives him something to do with himself. 

“And you know what,” he adds acidly, “you don’t need to go recruiting any more people to your weird cause, alright? Bad enough that you’ve got Adam doing your bidding for you.” 

As he speaks he yanks viciously at the can opener, nearly taking his fingers off in the process. It’s not impossible, he acknowledges, that he still feels bitter about her turning his best mate against him. 

“It’s unhygienic,” Liv repeats, acting like she hasn’t heard a word of what he just said. “You work with trash all day and then you come home and stick your fingers into your mouth. How can you not realize how _wrong_ that is?” 

“I wash my hands,” Aaron protests, gritting his teeth. 

“Not according to Robert, you don’t,” Liv says, her eyes laughing at him as Chas gives Aaron a startled look and hurries to tug the half-opened can out of his hands. 

Aaron looks longingly at the door, wondering if maybe there’s time for him to step into the pub for a quick pint before Robert shows up. Cain might be down there and if there’s someone Aaron can rely on to not give him a hard time for chewing up his fingers, it’s his uncle. Pot meet kettle, and all that. 

That’s when the door pushes open, letting in the muffled sound of the pub and a harried-looking Robert. His hair’s a mess and his face’s flushed, the way it gets when he’s spent all day working himself into a state about something. Robert’s face softens though as he takes in the people crowded in the kitchen and Aaron thinks that maybe even his shoulders sink down an inch or two. As if perhaps Robert likes coming home to a house full of people – _a proper little family…_

“That smells great,” Robert says, offering Chas a pleasant smile as he shrugs out of his coat. “And here I thought I was in for Aaron’s infamous beans on toast again.” 

Because he’s Robert and his middle name’s fussy-pants he takes the time to put away his coat properly before he crosses the floor to give Aaron his _back-from-work_ kiss. Robert’s lips feel chapped and his mouth tastes bitter, like he’s spent all day drinking black coffee and battling idiots on the phone. 

“You’re all hilarious,” Aaron mutters and he’s not defending his cooking skills, he’s really not, but there’s just no need for everyone to make such a fuss about it either. “You know that I cooked for myself all the time in France, right?” 

“I do and it breaks my heart,” Chas tells him, sounding like she means it. 

“Surprised you didn’t get scurvy,” Robert murmurs, his breath brushing against Aaron’s neck and his fingers cold as he slides them in under Aaron’s hoodie and up against his spine. 

“Oh, so that’s why you’re so short and _midget-like_ ,” Liv chips in. 

And he loves them, he does, but maybe sometimes he also hates them just a little bit. 

xxx 

“-bacteria like _Escherichia Coli_ and _Staphlococcus aureus_ and that’s just not stuff you want in…” 

Aaron stares at Paddy in horror. 

His dinner, a burger with chips, lays untouched on his plate and his stomach’s churning but it has fuck all to do with E. Coli. Under the table his leg begins to jiggle, jerking up and down in a way that he knows drive people mad. He’s past the point of caring though. 

“She got to you too?” he asks, even though the answer’s obvious. 

Paddy shrugs his big, rounded shoulders and makes one of his typical mild, non-committal noises. 

“I didn’t think the two of you got along,” Aaron continues, hating how his voice wobbles. It makes him sound like a kid who’s just been told that Santa’s not real. “I didn’t think you got along _at all_. She _sprayed you with mud_ and you _yelled_ at her and she called you _the fifth Teletubby_ and-” 

“She what?” 

Paddy blinks at him, his wide, wet eyes making him look like a kicked puppy. His face still carries the faint hint of bruising from the car accident and he’s lost both Rhona and Leo and he’s started to look _old_ which Aaron finds that he hates. 

“Never mind,” he sighs. “Just, shut up and eat, will you?” 

Leading by example, he picks up a chip and nibbles on it. And if he lets his teeth scrape a bit too hard against his fingertips, well, then that’ll just be his secret. 

xxx 

Here’s the thing. 

Liv’s sort of right. He should stop chewing on his fingers. Not because he’ll damage his nails or his teeth or his gums. Not because his hands are dirty either. They’re not, particularly, and even if they were, well, Aaron’s not worried about some garden variety stomach upset. That’s just not going to kill him, not when the cold lake water and a lacerated liver hadn’t. Not when the septicaemia didn’t. Not when locking himself into a garage with a running car had failed, despite his best intentions. 

Aaron should stop because lately when they’re curled up in bed and Robert reaches out to tangle their fingers together, Aaron finds himself looking for an excuse to pull away. At work he’s taken to wearing gloves, heavy duty ones while working the scrap and thin wool ones in the portacabin. At home, he’s been tugging his sleeves down over his hands, attempting to hide the damage away. To keep his friends and family from noticing how his nails have been chewed down to nothing and the cuticles have become raw and inflamed. 

Aaron should stop because the only reason he doesn’t want to stop to is because teeth ripping into skin _hurts_ and he still sorta, maybe, feels like he needs that. He’s given up so much else in the past few months but he’s clinging to this one last coping method like a child to a stuffed toy. It’s comforting and familiar and it feels right even though he knows, intellectually, that it’s wrong. 

Aaron should stop because he wants to be better than that. For Liv’s sake and Robert’s sake and, most days, for his own damned sake as well. 

xxx

Oh, and here’s another thing. 

It’s possible that it’s not Liv that he’s annoyed with as much as he’s annoyed with himself. 

xxx 

“Are you mad at me?” 

Standing there, framed by the doorway, Liv looks young. 

She has her hair out, spilling over her shoulders all soft and pale and she’s wearing one of Aaron’s old t-shirts to sleep in. The legs which stick out from underneath the hem aren’t thin, not like he vaguely remembers Vic’s being at the same age, but they’re _small_ all the same and her bare toes have curled up against the cold floor. 

“For nagging you so much,” she adds, her voice flat in a way it hasn’t been since she first came crashing into his life. Her mouth’s twisted down in the corners, betraying her unhappiness. She looks like she’s expecting him to put her on the next plane to Ireland. 

“No,” Aaron says, not bothering to think before he answers. “No, of course not.” 

He pats the side of the bed in a wordless invite and she hurries, feet barely touching the ground, as if she’s afraid that he’ll rescind the offer. His hoodie’s crumpled in a pile on the floor and he’s just wearing a t-shirt and a pair of sleeping boxers himself. She’s already seen his scars back in the hospital, but even so he wishes that he could hide them from her. That he could keep the messed-up parts of him from burdening her like they do Robert and Chas and everyone else. 

Liv doesn’t look though, just curls up next to him like that’s where she belongs. Or, he amends, like that’s where she _wants_ to belong. 

“I didn’t mean to upset you,” she says, not looking at him. She twirls her finger into her hair, twisting a strand so tight around her pinkie that it turns red. 

“You didn’t,” he lies as he reaches out to rescue her from gangrene. She makes an angry, disbelieving noise and his fingers twitch in hesitation before he realizes what’s actually upset her. 

“Alright,” he rectifies, “so maybe I got upset. But that’s not on you, Liv. You’re…” 

_The best thing that happened to me_ , he thinks even though that’s not entirely fair to Robert and also much too mushy to say out loud. 

“You’re my sister,” he says instead. “My very _favourite_ sister.” 

“I’m your only sister,” Liv protests, but not before he can see her lips quivering with amusement. 

“You’d be my favourite even if I had a dozen,” he promises, pressing a kiss against her hair. Then he wraps an arm around her to pull her close to him. Her skin’s cold so he drags the duvet over her and she lets him, her head resting on his chest, just over his heart. Aaron sleeps like that sometimes, his ear pressing against the edge of Robert’s sternum. 

“Robert will be here soon,” Liv says now, yawning wide. “He just finished brushing his teeth. I heard him gargling as I crossed the hallway.” 

She sounds sleepy but also disgusted. 

“He takes gargling pretty seriously,” Aaron agrees. 

“He’s a _weirdo_.” 

But she sounds fond enough and when Robert shows up she doesn’t run away but stays, watching Aaron’s fiancé through slitted eyes as the man goes about his bedtime routine as usual, steadily ignoring her presence. As they watch him, Robert takes out new clothes for tomorrow, even taking the time to sort through his half of the sock drawer until he finds a pair of socks that matches his tie. He plugs his phone in to charge, checking and then double-checking to make sure that the alarm’s set. Then he makes sure that the window’s latched and pulls the curtains an inch or two closer together. 

“You worried that someone will break in and steal your socks?” Liv asks him, sounding honestly curious. It startles a laugh out of Aaron and she lifts her head as his chest moves, aiming a bleary and accusing glare his way. He guesses, from his experience with Robert, that she doesn’t much care for her human pillow to move about too much. 

“Off to bed with you,” he tells her. “You have school tomorrow.” 

She trots off but not before she’s stolen Robert’s abandoned dressing gown and draped it over her shoulders like a cloak. It doesn’t _quite_ drag behind her, but it’s close. 

“Your sister’s a weirdo,” Robert announces, but he keeps his voice quiet and there’s no heat in his voice. No heat and maybe, possibly a great deal of fondness. 

_A proper little family_ , Aaron thinks again, the words whispered in Robert’s voice. 

xxx 

“She means well, you know.” 

“What?” 

“Your sister,” Robert murmurs. “She doesn’t mean to be stressing you out about it. It’s just… she doesn’t like seeing you rip into yourself.” 

The way he says it, the amount of feeling that sneaks into the words, makes it clear that he’s not just talking about Liv. Aaron stares at him, not sure what to say. His chest feels tight and he so desperately wants, no he _needs_ , everyone to stop bothering him about this. Robert must notice because he quickly loses the serious expression on his face. 

“It’s not all bad, you know,” he says, leering at Aaron. “You having a bit of an _oral fixation_ , I mean.” 

He sounds like a James Bond villain, all innuendo and smarm. Aaron rolls his eyes, relieved to find the tightness lessening. 

“Don’t know, mate,” he says, making a point of letting his eyes drift down Robert’s willowy figure. “Not sure what weird kinks you might have been hiding all this time, but I can’t imagine you’d be much into having your dick turn into my chew toy.” 

Robert does wince at that, even going so far as to move a hand under the duvet, as if to protect himself against any sudden attacks. 

xxx 

In the morning, Robert follows him into the bathroom. It’s strange to think that, after everything they’ve gone through, it’s come to this, Aaron brushing his teeth, spitting out big mouthfuls of foam into the sink, while Robert takes his morning piss. 

“I think romance’s dead,” Aaron says, only he still has the toothbrush in his mouth and the words come out garbled. He’s just about to repeat himself when Robert nudges him away from the tap. 

“Actually, I think romance died last night,” Robert says as he washes his hands. “The exact time of death being when you threatened to go all Cujo on my-“ 

“Served you right,” Aaron interrupts. “That’ll teach you not to gang up on me with my sister. You’re meant to be on my side.” 

Robert turns around then, taking two big steps forward so that suddenly Aaron finds himself with the cold tile wall pressing against his back and Robert’s firm body pressing against his front. 

“I’m always on your side,” Robert says and he sounds so _earnest_ that Aaron can’t help but reward him with a kiss. One kiss turns into two though, followed by Robert’s fingers tangling in Aaron’s hair and Aaron’s hair tugging at the hem of Robert’s boxers and everything's quickly turning into a repeat of the June shower incident. 

“Not _here_ ,” he pants, pushing at Robert’s shoulders. 

“I locked the door.” 

“ _Not here_.” 

Robert groans. Robert moans. Robert makes sad puppy eyes. In the end, they still go back to the bedroom. 

xxx 

At work, a pack of his favourite biscuits waits for him by the kettle. 

There’s a post-it note attached to it, the message written in Adam’s familiar scrawl. _Something better to nibble on,_ it says, followed by a lopsided smiley face. Aaron traces the letters, feeling guilt tug at him. It’s not right that Adam should be taking the time to worry about Aaron's petty shit when he has so much going on in his own life right now. Feeling miserable, Aaron lifts his hand to his mouth, brushing his thumb against his lips. 

Doesn’t bite down though. 

Allows his hand to sink down instead, spreading it out in front of him. Looks at it, properly for the first time in ages. Rough and calloused. Tanned. A few scars earned the right way. Earned from working with car engines and with scrap, from playing around with Clyde and roughhousing with Adam, and, maybe, yeah, from punching a few people in the mouth. Ragged nails. Skin picked away around the nail beds. The ring. 

_The ring._ Aaron stares at it. Takes it off and holds it in the palm of his hand, weighing it. It’s skin-warm to the touch. Hard and light. He finds it difficult to imagine that such a little thing can hold so much meaning. Yet it does. He knows it does. Can feel it tugging at his heart, even now, just from looking at it. He sighs. Slips the ring back on his finger. Looks at his hand. The nails. The cuticles. The damage he’s done to himself. He opens the top drawer of his desk and rummages through the content. Finds a pen. Starts fidgeting with that instead. 

It’s not a promise, alright? It’s not him giving anything up. It’s just…giving something else a chance. Trying something new. 

As Liv had told him, it’s worth a try.

**Author's Note:**

> The title’s from a Toad the Wet Sprocket song. Also, I can't believe I wrote almost 5,000 words about nail-biting. FML. Anyway, I guess, this story is sorta made-up of left-over plot bunnies from "test run"? Anyway, I hope it wasn't too awful. 
> 
> Kudos and feedback's welcome.


End file.
